Installing New Relic for Your Rails App

What is New Relic?

New Relic is a performance management system that our company just started using to monitor some of our larger apps. Since this app occasionally drops mysql connection (I'm thinking it's related to Unicorn) we're using it as a test case.

By using New Relic you can get real-time browser performance, app performance, database performance, email notifications. And on top of being a great resource it looks awesome. Some really nice design there.

Installation and Use

Installation for Rails Apps is easy. Add the gem to your Gemfile inside your production group.

gem 'newrelic_rpm'

When you're done with that add newrelic.yml Inside your config/ folder inside your app. You can get the default settings from the github project.

You'll need a license key and to change your group's based on your configurations if you don't want the default options.

Once deployed New Relic automatically recognizes your Rails App and begins monitoring it. It monitors who is visiting your site and from what country as well as all the processes it is running. Definitely worth checking out.

About

Hi, I'm Eileen! I'm a Senior Systems Engineer at GitHub. I'm an avid contributor to Open Source and am on the Rails Core Team and the Rails Security Team. I enjoy speaking at conferences, usually about performance or contributing to Open Source. Other than writing code, I enjoy craft beer and hiking with my husband, Abe and our dog, Arya.